


Homesick

by Seliphra



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Homesickness, Hurt, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Langst, Mostly Lance and his inner thoughts while he tries to deal with being away from home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9853298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seliphra/pseuds/Seliphra
Summary: When he was a boy, Lance would have given anything to get into space and touch the stars. Now that he's there, he would give anything to go home again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Commission piece for @dorianshavilliard on tumblr featuring a lot of langst and Lance missing home and not being able to return! I hope you like it! (If you would like to commission me for anything, please check my tumblr @seliphra

Space was a place that Lance had always longed for. For as long as he could remember, Lance would go outside at night, just to look up at the sky and think of all the stars, the worlds that might be out there. He especially loved taking his boat out and setting anchor somewhere off shore, and laying down for hours, just staring up, up into the endless night sky above him. Lance had never been more at peace than when he had been sailing out on an ocean of stars at night, only returning home when someone came looking for him, calling that it was time to go to bed, and scolding him for being out so late again. Especially on a school night, it was no wonder he had so much trouble concentrating!

Lance had made it into the garrison at fifteen, and though his initial tests put him as a cargo pilot, he was the best cargo pilot in his class. Another student, the best fighter class pilot in the school, was expelled and they bumped Lance up a level. It did not matter how many cargo pilots there were, but they needed exactly thirty fighter-class pilots to graduate. Lance had been ecstatic when he was bumped up, but the instructors took every opportunity to remind him that he was only there because Keith had a discipline issue.

Lance had the lowest grades as a fighter-class pilot, but his grade remained higher than the highest cargo pilot, so he was allowed to stay in the fighter class levels. Even other students had teased him about this, and Lance had been grateful to be there at all, if hurt that no one thought he could learn to do better. Or, he had been allowed to remain in the fighter class program until of course the whole fiasco with Shiro, Keith, the blue lion, and coming to Arus. Not to mention their duty as the Paladin's of Voltron.

Lance stared out into the stars, his knees hanging over the drop off that led down to the floor below, the lower part of the safety rail pressed into his stomach, the upper part on his forehead as he looked out into the endless blackness. The stars were as beautiful as ever, in many ways more so, when they stopped near nebula's or other various phenomenon in the universe. The distance between them was more than Lance had ever been able to comprehend though. Even now he struggled to wrap his head around just how far apart everything was out here.

Five year old Lance had believed the beach was too far from his front door, at a twenty minute walk away. Five year old Lance had walked the distance anyways though, to look at the stars from the beach where there was less light at night, save for the occasional fire or flashlight or phones lighting up from some couple trying to get a little public privacy. Lance had never understood the appeal of sex on the beach though, you would get sand _everywhere_ after all and it just seemed mightily unpleasant to him.

Five year old Lance would not have been able to comprehend just how far away the stars really were. Five year old Lance had believed if he could swim out far enough on the ocean, there would be a place where the stars met the water, where he could change direction and swim in the sky, among the stars forever. Five year old Lance had been naive and told his whole family that he wanted to go to space one day. His mother had smiled gently and his father told him he had to eat space pea's and learn to speak English if he did. Lance had said he would, even though a new language had seemed like a lot of work just so he could swim in the stars, and he didn't understand yet why it was even necessary.

Ten year old Lance had no illusions about how hard getting into space would be, however. Ten year old Lance had taken the boat out every night to dream about touching the stars and going further than any human had ever gone. Ten year old Lance had learned to speak English, and with his aunt's help had learned to speak English with an American accent, since they had the Garrison in Texas, where old NASA had once been. NASA was from before humans colonized Mars and the moon though, back before they could send a human almost anywhere in their own solar system within a matter of a few months. Ten year old Lance liked imagining going to new planets and meeting new species, and being an ambassador of Earth. More than anything at all though he had dreamed of being a pilot, flying to worlds unknown, charting the stars while soaring among them.

And here he sat now, alone on the second level of one of the four observation decks that the Castle of Lions had. Seventeen year old Lance who would trade every experience he had so far had since leaving Earth, all for just one minute back in his boat on the ocean at night, while his older sister yelled at him to come home already and scolded him for staying out so late again. For one hug from his mother, his abuela's cooking at just one meal. For a single rain fall where he could stand in a field while the thunder rolled over head, giddy and feeling connected to the entirety of creation through the rain. Seventeen year old Lance who was tired of the endless black vastness that sped past him now, at speeds he couldn't quite calculate from a third language he hadn't started learning just yet. Seventeen year old Lance who had been drafted into a war he hadn't known existed a year ago, on planets he hadn't dreamed existed, with a species he couldn't quite comprehend was really real yet.

Lance missed so many things about home. He knew the others missed home too, but no one else ever brought it up, and they all changed the topic too quickly if Lance tried to. It left him feeling more isolated and alone than ever, more than the empty vastness of space could. Lance missed the way the sun would poke through the clouds in beams of light. He missed rain, and splashing in puddles, the way the world smelled fresh and clean after the storm had passed and the heavy smell the air got before the storm began. Lance missed the ocean, how on a calm day the water was like a mirror, and you could see all the stars reflected on it's surface and it felt like you were on an ocean of stars. Lance missed the smell of home more now than when he'd been at the garrison.

When he'd first left for the garrison, he had missed the noise most of all. He'd gone from five siblings and his niece and nephew, parents, aunt, and grandparents all crammed together in one house to just himself, alone entirely. He'd thought it had been too quiet then, but at least there was sound from the instructors, hallway patrols, other students. In this big empty castle with only seven other souls, the silence was deafening to Lance. He was extra-loud now to try and make up for it. Pidge seemed to revel in the silence, and Lance was envious that she seemed to like it.

He missed the smell of home when he first moved to the garrison. Something was always cooking at home, and there was always the smell of his family, the pets, the world around them. A combination of scents that Lance loved more than anything. When he'd left for the garrison he hadn't realized how much he would miss that, but at least they had real food. He couldn't remember the smell of his abuela's cooking, or his mother's hair, or his father's occasional cigar that he always pretended he did not have, but always got lectured for anyways by his wife and all his children. There was no way he could make up for the lack of scent on the ship though. Shiro said the castle smelled clean, and he seemed to enjoy it, but Lance thought it smelled too sterile. Like a hospital.

Lance missed that something was always happening. At home there was always movement, noise, activity. It had been a hub of constant movement, like a living organism. At the garrison things had been like that too, except for late at night, and Lance would simply sneak out to hit clubs and flirt when it was too quiet for his liking. But here, on the castle ship, Lance was sealed in. Lance felt he might go stir crazy at this rate, with nothing to do but train or play charades, or watch the damned empty vastness go past him from the window. Keith trained all hours it seemed, to cope with the boredom, but Lance wasn't sure how much training he could take.

It was strange, sitting here thinking about it, but Lance even missed the garrison when he was out here. He used to go home every long weekend, to the noise, the scent, and the flurry of movement that was 'home' and he had loved every second of it. He would tell his niece about how he was the best pilot there and his nephew about how he was going to fight bad aliens. His sister had chided him for giving little Raul nightmares about evil aliens, and Lance had to promise him over the phone that he would beat all the aliens before they ever got to earth. How ironic, that he was here now, doing almost exactly that.

Were they worried about him? Lance wondered. He could imagine his mother crying about her missing son, and his brother suspecting he'd dropped out and was too ashamed to say it. He wondered if the garrison had searched for them all, three students had gone missing all at once, and Keith and Shiro... well, Shiro was officially dead. Keith though... Lance wondered if there was even anyone on earth to worry about Keith. He did not seem like he missed it too much, and he never mentioned his family either. It seemed sad to Lance, but maybe that was an advantage? Keith had nothing to miss, and here Lance was, stewing in everything he couldn't see or touch. Maybe for the rest of forever.

Lance felt all hollow inside when he thought about that, how it may be he never went home. How he might die out here, a billion light years from earth and no one would ever know about it. His family would never know what he'd seen or done or what had become of him if he did die out here, or hell, if he lived his whole life here and died an old man and simply never finished the fight against Zarkon. God... he did not think he could bear that! Never seeing home again, that was what would kill him, surely.

His sister had been pregnant again when he left, the third child her and her husband would have. Surely the baby had come by now, and Lance realized he didn't even know if he had another niece or another nephew now. The hollow feeling in his chest filled suddenly again, though it was an unpleasant emotion that took root inside his chest, and threatened to overwhelm him entirely. Lance swallowed hard as a lump formed in his throat, and he wiped his eyes, his vision going blurry as he stared out into space. The empty blackness distorted and grew fuzzy, tiny pinpricks of stars growing into enormous balls of fuzzy, soft light in a multitude of hues.

Lance was a loud person, to cope with the stifling silence of space, but right now he didn't want to make noise. He pressed his arm to his eyes now, biting his lower lip as he tried so hard not to think about his family. It was useless though, Lance had been stewing in his thoughts of them this whole time, and now that he _was_ thinking about them, he couldn't seem to stop again. Lance hated this, he hated that he could hurt so much. That he could miss something so desperately that it made his chest ache and his breath short.

“Lance?” A voice called suddenly, the sound of another voice startling him so badly that he jumped and yelped, both hands grabbing the safety rail. He barely contained his breathing enough to reply, not daring to turn around though to face the speaker.

“Hey Coran. How's it hangin'?” He asked, surprised by how stable his voice sounded. Coran would be suspicious though, he already knew, and Lance hurriedly wiped away the remaining tears. That really would give it away though, and the damned lump in his throat was not so easily gotten rid of either.

“Well, I'm still not sure about Earthling expressions, but that one means how I'm doing, right? I suppose I'm alright anyways, though I am a bit surprised to see you here. Are you alright Lance?” Coran asked now, coming closer, then surprising Lance by sitting beside him.

“Uh, yeah. I'm fine I guess, just looking out into space and all,” Lance said, grinning at Coran, hoping to waylay any suspicion on Lance's emotional state. Coran fixed him with a gentle look though, and Lance felt his smile falter at the sight of it, swallowing again. It faded entirely in the span of just three heartbeats, and he looked back out at space again, sullen.

“It's hard getting used to being out here isn't it? Shiro tells me your kind hadn't even left their solar system yet,” Coran said, his tone gentle, calm. Lance found it soothing, but it did little to assuage his home sickness or his loneliness.

“Yeah. I really miss home Coran. I know I said it before to you, but I still miss it. It's been almost a year now and I can't really remember the right shade of blue for the sky any more. I'm forgetting what the ocean smelled like, the sound of my mom yelling at me... I didn't think I could even miss my mom _yelling_ at me,” Lance confessed, his shoulders drooping.

“I know Lance. It's surprising what you can miss when you haven't seen it in a long time. But you'll see it again someday. The princess and I won't let you live your whole lives without ever going home again, don't you fret too much,” Coran said, patting Lance's back. “And in the mean time, it's alright to miss everything. It's hard when you can't touch it or see it any more, and it's normal to be sad about that Lance.”

“Yeah. I guess it is, huh?” Lance asked. He did not miss home any less than he had before, but it felt a little easier now too, missing home and his family. Missing the hubbub and mayhem of his home and the garrison and of the whole of Earth in general. At the very least, Lance felt like he was allowed to miss it all now, like he was not completely ridiculous for missing it all and worrying so much. It was Coran who had given him that much too. “Hey Coran?”

“Yes Lance?”

“Thanks.”

 


End file.
